Sarah Snook in Sydney Theatre Company’s Saint Joan Photo: Brett Boardman
Soldier, maid, madwoman, saint, misguided teenager? The powers that were had difficulty working her out in the 15th century, so how can we hope to do better?
Joan heard voices (the Archangel Michael, virgin martyrs St Catherine and St Margaret) and they told her she was the Daughter of God and destined to rid France of the English. She believed them absolutely and a combination of her sheer conviction, shrewd intelligence and novelty (a mere country girl? leading armies?) saw her help turn the tide for the French in the Hundred Years and get Charles VII crowned in the newly-liberated Reims Cathedral.
Sarah Snook in Sydney Theatre Company’s Saint Joan Photo: Brett Boardman
Job done! Go home now, Joan. The Church and the nobility didn’t want this bolshy, charismatic upstart – who had the common touch as well as the ability to persuade kings – running interference in their separate power structures and it wasn’t long before Joan was taken prisoner, declared a heretic, excommunicated and burned at the stake. Charles VII didn’t intervene; he was doing some serious back pedalling, but 20 years later there was a retrial and she was exonerated. Now Joan is France’s patron saint.
But back to the play. George Bernard Shaw’s St Joan was written in 1923, a couple of years after Joan of Arc’s canonisation. Unlike most stories of the Maid, he didn’t seek to romanticise her or vilify all of her accusers (going through transcripts of her trial, he found they acted more or less to the beliefs of their time – a time when simply wearing men’s clothing meant a woman must be in league with the devil).
In this adaptation, director Amara Savage gives us a stripped back version of that play, with the focus squarely on Joan (Sarah Snook is on stage for the whole 95 minutes) and some additional text that reveals a new voice for Joan.
The result is powerful, with wonderful imagery that will resonate with me for a long time. The opening scene is just one example: an armoured figure in silver stands sentinel centre-stage. The lighting is subdued but everything is silver, black, grey and hard. The knight is Joan, of course, but she doesn’t move and her presence is unacknowledged. Instead we start meeting the powerbrokers who talk about her, not to her. The men in black, and dark brown. To them, the churchmen and the nobles, Joan is a witch, a heretic, a nuisance, and a threat.
In the next scene Joan is revealed, in her nondescript male garb, in prison and under interrogation, and the story unfolds. Much of it is revealed through flashbacks inside her mind and, as Savage notes, “Joan’s mind is a fascinating place”. New monologues from STC emerging writer Emme Hoy tell us just how guided Joan was by her three saints; her voices are her friends, they are with her constantly. The new writing also references Joan’s determination and daring in the field of battle. Sarah Snook’s portrayal is as extraordinary and as absolute as Joan’s belief in those voices and in herself. The audience never doubts her, and is never in any doubt that this Joan will live and die by her convictions: she knows who she is and she knows what she wants, and she knows God is guiding her. It is a remarkable performance in a remarkable play. Snook shines, literally and figuratively.
Gareth Davies, Sean O’Shea, David Whitney, Brandon McClelland and Sarah Snook in Sydney Theatre Company’s Saint Joan. Photo: Brett Boardman
She is surrounded by men who are equally egotistical, but more authoritarian and ultimately way more powerful. And what a cast to portray those men: John Gaden (as the Inquisitor/Archbishop) is, as always, a standout, but how not to mention Sean O’Shea’s outraged English priest; William Zappa’s Bishop, Anthony Taufa’s Bluebeard, Gareth Davies, Socratis Otto? Another fabulous moment, towards the end of the play, is all of them arranged around Snook in a semi-circle of gesticulating outrage.
Compromise was not a quality shared by any of them (Gaden’s unctuous character hints at the possibility, or more like the expediency of it) and compromise was certainly alien to Joan. She was living life on her terms, and she was prepared to risk it all. Savage wants us to consider modern day parallels in the likes of Malala Yousafzai and Emma Gonzalez. That doesn’t really work for me, although I get the point.
How about this? Men, 600 years ago, just couldn’t handle bossy, competent, know-it-all females. What’s changed?
Saint Joan, STC at Roslyn Packer Theatre until June 30.
